finally some sanity on voat - shills must have not brigaded this thread for whatever reason.

While that's a fair enough assessment, it doesn't address the present to any detail. I think we are locked in to the current state of affairs by the existential threat of jihadis with nukes. Our foreign policy hand is forced; if we don't actively prevent jihadi nuke acquisition, we're fucked. Active prevention perpetuates enmity. What's the out for that catch 22?

According to most Christians the Old Testament is mostly not but moot because of the New Testament and should not be taken seriously.

iran had a democratically elected president in the 50s who got btfo by a CIA coup because BP wanted their cheap oil
The UK was practically begging for the US to step in so that iran wont stop outsourcing their oil
So after the democratically elected president was out, in came the dictator shah who killed his own citizen, but he was pro-west atleast
The people knocked him into exile and hired fanatics into the highest position of power and everything just goes more downhill
Oh, plus the west was supplying both iraq and iran with weapons during the 80-88 gulf war
The only difference being that they gave saddam illegal chemical warheads and gasses (chlor, mustard, nerve gas if i remember correctly)

So after the blood bath which the west was loving, saddam didnt really win anything
So he turns a couple of degrees and targets kuwait
big brothers reaction: HOLD UP SADDAM, WE ONLY GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO RAPE IRAN, NOT KUWAIT, TIME TO STEP IN AND FUCK YOUR SHIT UP

Thats just the short version and this shit goes all the way from the middle east to africa

I agree we messed it up over there. That doesn't mean I want to make revenge easier for them.

To be fair, when they do bomb something important we usually just end up invading something or dropping even bigger bombs on them.

There's really no correct solution here, it's the perfect catch-22. If they kill leaders, we bomb them. When we bomb them, they want to kill more leaders. When they keep trying to kill people it makes us want to kill them even more. We're literally just two people on fire throwing gas at each other.

iran and afghanistand would pretty much be western countries if the west didnt fuck up their shit

I'd agree more with the Muslims if they would've actually targeted our governments instead of innocent bystanders

I bet if you asked a Muslim he'd say something similar about us. They'd probably hate American citizens a little less if they weren't the ones dumping 5.56 rounds into their families' heads and dropping bombs on their houses. Yeah, we're just following orders, but we're still signing up and voluntarily shipping our asses over there to fight an illegal war against people who may or may not have had anything to do with whatever lead us to fight in the first place.

I'm not saying their rage is warranted, just saying we probably have similar perspectives. We're both actually mad at the people in charge but they're not the ones who are putting their boots in our ass and they're impossible to reach so it's much easier to take our anger out on each other.

Also the Bible and Quran are hugely different. The Bible reads like a storybook, while the Quran reads more like an instruction manual. Another difference is that Jesus went against the violent culture of the epoch in almost every way, while Muhammed seems to have blatantly followed it. There's much criticism to be had about organized religion in general and in the case of Christianity I'd say they are definitely working on it. Islam on the other hand...

I can agree and disagree with you there on several points. Islam does blatantly say "kill or enslave nonbelievers", but the old testament is no better on how one should treat their slaves. What's that one Ezekiel verse - "[sic from memory] if you beat your slave to a point where he can again walk 3 days later then everything is fine".

The literal translations from old Christianity are pretty brutal in some areas, just like the Quran is.

Don't forget earlier American history around the 1700-1800's where accused witches were burned at the stake. Many western cultures adapted and started taking scripture less literally...mostly because they had more access to freedoms after the 1800-2000 centuries. Many Muslim countries had those freedoms post early and mid 1900's, but lost them due to constant regional wars, so they would still continue the barbaric practices from their main book. Christians may have stopped crucifixion due to evolving their social issues, but Muslims have not had the stability to do so.

I'm not defending that, just trying to connect some dots.

I believe that many of the gruesome acts committed by the West in this region were to intentionally prevent anything like the Ottoman Empire from ever forming again. If there was a strong, modern and united military in that region, then western societies would not have such easy access to their oil.

Interesting. Consider the timeline, though. Saudi Arabia: 1932. Iraq: 1920. Right at the rise of petroleum as a factor in geopolitics.